Guard shot at Holocaust museum dies

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The security guard shot at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has died.

Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was on the security staff of the museum for six years, allegedly was shot Wednesday afternoon by 88-year-old James Wenneker Von Brunn, a Maryland white supremacist.

The museum announced shortly after 4 p.m. that Johns had died from his injuries at George Washington University Hospital and the museum would be closed Thursday in his memory.

Von Brunn entered the museum sometime after 12:30 p.m. with a shotgun and opened fire near the metal detectors at the entrance, according to law enforcement authorities and the museum. Other security guards returned fire and the gunman was wounded.

A third man reportedly was injured by shattered glass and treated at the scene.

The museum was evacuated following the shooting.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based group that tracks hate groups, identified von Brunn as a longtime white supremacist based on Maryland’s eastern shore.

On his Web site, HolyWesternEmpire.org, von Brunn claims that in 1981 he attempted to arrest the leadership of the Federal Reserve. He says he was arrested after surrendering to a guard who called von Brunn’s bluff on his threats to open fire. According to von Brunn, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.